Binance Hack of 6.3 Billion Dollars: What We Know and What Arbitrage Traders Should Do

Binance Hack of 6.3 Billion Dollars: What We Know and What Arbitrage Traders Should Do

The Binance hack became known on October 29 at around 4:05 p.m. New York time. It is the largest theft in crypto history, but the first day after it also brought good news: almost half of the stolen funds have already been frozen, and the exchange promised to cover all losses.

What happened

According to Binance, the attackers withdrew about 6.3 billion dollars across roughly 10 blockchains. Elliptic puts the damage at 6.4 billion across 11 networks.

That is roughly four times the 1.5 billion dollar Bybit hack in February 2025. The stolen funds include 18,270 BTC, about 1.5 billion dollars.

The entry point was a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer. Through it, the attackers gained access to a service container.

Binance found no leak of private keys. At the same time, the exchange identified "additional points of compromise".

What has already been frozen

In our view, this is the main positive in the story. Stablecoin issuers acted quickly, and a significant part of the funds can no longer move further.

What Binance promises

The exchange said it would cover all user losses and set aside more than 6.3 billion dollars for this. Withdrawals are paused, and Binance expected to resume them in about two days.

Fundstrat sees no material risk to the exchange's solvency.

Who is behind the attack

TRM Labs, Chainalysis and Elliptic linked the attack to the North Korean group TraderTraitor, part of Lazarus. As of October 30, no government had officially confirmed this attribution.

Market reaction

Bitcoin fell to 76,301 dollars, its lowest since September 18. About 1.5 billion dollars of positions were liquidated within a day.

From what we see, news like this hits leverage first. The market flushes out overheated positions before anything else.

What arbitrage traders should do right now

• do not open trades that require withdrawing coins or money from Binance
• do not treat a Binance spread against other exchanges as a ready-made opportunity: while withdrawals are closed, you cannot close such a trade with a transfer
• check deposit and withdrawal status for each coin and network before any transfer
• keep capital on several venues, not on one

We believe that in the coming days it is wiser to run trades where neither leg depends on withdrawals from Binance. These can be funding trades between other venues or spot on exchanges with open wallets.

Our tools

While Binance withdrawals are closed, working trades are easier to tell apart from traps when you see every exchange at once. Our arbitrage screener keeps dozens of venues in one window, refreshes quotes every second and shows each gap together with the volume actually behind it. The spread calculator helps you check what survives fees, network costs and slippage at your size. The bot is fully manual. It never connects to your exchange API keys.

To test the tools on a live market, ArbitrageScanner offers one day of free access to the whole ecosystem.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

1. How much was stolen from Binance in the October 2026 hack?

According to Binance, about 6.3 billion dollars across roughly 10 blockchains. Elliptic puts the damage at 6.4 billion across 11 networks.

2. Will Binance return users' money?

The exchange said it would cover all losses and set aside more than 6.3 billion dollars for this. In addition, about 3 billion of the stolen funds has already been frozen.

3. When will Binance reopen withdrawals?

Withdrawals are paused. Binance expected to resume them about two days after the hack.

4. Who hacked Binance?

TRM Labs, Chainalysis and Elliptic linked the attack to the North Korean group TraderTraitor (Lazarus). As of October 30, no government had confirmed this.

Conclusion

The 6.3 billion dollar Binance hack is the largest in crypto history. About 3 billion has already been frozen, the exchange promises to cover all losses, and Fundstrat sees no material solvency risk.

While withdrawals are closed, arbitrage traders are better off not building trades through Binance, checking wallet statuses and keeping capital on several exchanges.

IMPORTANT! We are software developers. We do not give recommendations or promises of earnings and we do not advise you to invest your money anywhere. Our software is fully manual, all your money stays under your own control. We show examples of how our clients have earned on arbitrage in the past, but we do not advise repeating those actions one to one. Your earnings depend solely on your own actions and on market factors.